Skip to page content

Modeling and Simulation

Featured

Researchers frequently require a quantitative understanding of the likely consequences of different actions before they can advise decisionmakers and design effective policies. RAND develops and uses statistical, econometric, and other exploratory models and simulations to analyze the potential outcomes of different policies in a range of areas such as transportation usage, health care, patient safety, and military campaigns.

Tool

New Tool Can Help Health Officials Plan for COVID-19 Patient Surge

Apr 3, 2020

Hospitals are searching for ways to ramp up their surge capacity to provide critical care for the sickest COVID-19 patients. A new, user-friendly calculator enables decisionmakers at all levels to estimate current critical care capacity and rapidly explore strategies for increasing it.
Tool

New Tool Can Assess the Effects of COVID-19 Interventions

May 4, 2020

State and local leaders have taken unprecedented measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed. As states plan the way to recovery, a new tool can help them estimate both the public health and economic consequences of imposing or lifting restrictions.

Explore Modeling and Simulation

News Release

News Release

New Game, the First Offered by RAND to Public, Challenges Players to Design Defense Strategies for Uncertain World

The RAND Corporation has released a boxed version of Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices that researchers originally developed to help the Pentagon craft its capstone guidance document, the 2018 National Defense Strategy. It is the first wargame offered by RAND to the public and carries a $250 price tag.

Sep 22, 2020
Multimedia

Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices

Hedgemony is a tabletop game designed to challenge players to outline a strategy and then make tough choices as they try to develop, manage, posture, and employ their forces in alignment with their strategies.

Sep 22, 2020
Tool

Hedgemony: A Game of Strategic Choices

In this tabletop military strategy game, players represent the United States, its allies, and its key competitors. They must use “hedging” strategies and decide how to best manage their resources and forces.

Sep 21, 2020
Report

How Can the Coast Guard Use Gaming?

The U.S. Coast Guard employs some gaming approaches, but doing so more formally could help the service expand its tool sets. In this Perspective, the authors discuss how the service can use gaming better.

Sep 9, 2020
Journal Article

Engaging Multiple Worldviews With Quantitative Decision Support: A Robust Decision-Making Demonstration Using the Lake Model

This study builds on recent advances in methods and tools for decisionmaking under deep uncertainty to demonstrate analytic approaches that help reduce the tension between quantitative decision support tools and approaches for addressing wicked problems.

Aug 25, 2020
Commentary

Why Militaries Should Play Games with Each Other

With rising rates of COVID-19 and vulnerable populations at risk, Hawaii's people are understandably nervous about the upcoming Rim of the Pacific exercise scheduled for August. But COVID-19 cannot be a blanket check on international engagement by the U.S. military. With the effects of COVID-19 expected to last for decades, the forward thinking found in games may be exactly what is needed.

Aug 14, 2020
Blog

Preparing for a COVID-19 Election, Hurricane Response, North Korea: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on preparing for a COVID-19 election, how the pandemic is affecting artists, North Korea's deadly artillery, and more.

Aug 7, 2020
Report

Modeling Career Enlisted Aviator Retention in the U.S. Air Force

The authors developed a U.S. Air Force career enlisted aviator (CEA)-specific model that can serve as the foundation for developing the analytic capability required to determine the efficient amount of special and incentive pay for CEAs.

Aug 5, 2020
Journal Article

Journal Article

Evaluation of Longitudinal Surrogate Markers

In this paper, we propose a model-free definition for the proportion of the treatment effect on the primary outcome that is explained by the treatment effect on the longitudinal surrogate markers.

Aug 4, 2020
Journal Article

Journal Article

Linking Statistics with Testing Policy to Manage COVID-19 in the Community

Monitoring the evolution of the pandemic in our society is crucial. This discussion highlights some very important principles of statistical sampling that are relevant to formulating policy.

Aug 4, 2020
Commentary

Wargaming the Department of Defense for Strategic Advantage

Defense acquisition, personnel, and management systems have long been seen as areas in need of reform, as costs and man-hours continue to increase over the years. Gaming new policies that govern these areas can offer early insights into potential stumbling blocks and provide leaders valuable feedback on decisions before major costs are incurred.

Aug 3, 2020
Commentary

What Strategic Decisions on the Horizon for the Department of Defense Can Best Be Shaped Through Wargaming?

The U.S. Marine Corps is not alone in its avid use of wargaming to shape its decisions of the future. The other services are conducting similar efforts with equal rigor and zeal. And as the national deficit grows and budgetary constraints mount, the Department of Defense will most likely increasingly leverage all its analytical tools, including wargaming.

Aug 3, 2020
Journal Article

Journal Article

Prevalence and Predictors of Driving After Prescription Opioid Use in an Adult ED Sample

Prescription opioid use and driving is a public health concern given the risks associated with drugged driving. We examined the prevalence and correlates of driving after taking prescription opioids among adults seeking emergency department treatment.

Jul 31, 2020
Blog

Online Shopping, Living in a Riskier World, Stress in Communities: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on Americans' online shopping habits during the pandemic, living in a riskier world, how stress builds in communities, and more.

Jul 10, 2020
Report

Which COVID-19 Models Are Useful to Policymakers?

Forecasting models are widely used to inform policymakers about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of policy responses to it. As models are being developed and improved continually, a new RAND framework can assess which ones are suitable for the state of Virginia.

Jul 8, 2020
Journal Article

The State of the Science in Opioid Policy Research

The rigor of study design varies notably across policy categories, highlighting the need for broader adoption of rigorous methods in opioid policy research.

Jul 7, 2020
Report

Report

Joint All-Domain Command and Control for Modern Warfare: An Analytic Framework for Identifying and Developing Artificial Intelligence Applications

The authors examine and recommend opportunities for applying artificial intelligence and, more broadly, automation to deliberate planning for joint all-domain command and control for the U.S. Air Force.

Jul 1, 2020
Report

Opportunities for Including the Information Environment in U.S. Marine Corps Wargames

Wargaming is enjoying renewed prominence in the defense community, yet the information environment remains underdeveloped and underrepresented in wargames.

Jul 1, 2020
Tool

Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups: A Tutorial on the TWANG Shiny App for Two Treatments

This tutorial describes how to use a menu-driven Shiny app based on the Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups (TWANG) R package. It can be used to estimate propensity score weights and treatment effects for binary treatments.

Jun 30, 2020
Journal Article

Journal Article

Switching Cluster Membership in Cluster Randomized Control Trials: Implications for Design and Analysis

With a focus on cluster switching that violates treatment assignment, the goal of this article is to explore the challenges posed for the analysis of clustered RCTs and to propose a potential solution to these challenges.

Jun 16, 2020

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next

RAND Topic:
Modeling and Simulation

Topic Synonyms:
Mathematical Modeling;
Modelling

Research conducted by